Pat Arnold

MR. ARNOLD: That big empty lot on the corner of Potomac
Avenue where they've got that sign, 'for sale: there was a big apartment
house there. Now, that was real old apartments and my parents owned that.
It was called Flattops. Flattops was set on fire two or three times. It
didn't burn down. The county made Dr. Hughs tear it down cause it was
such a fire trap.

We owned a lot of property down here. At one time my parents owned
twenty-one pieces of property in New Alexandria. Homes that you see up
there on the Potomac Avenue and Belle Haven Road. We owned a lot of land
where the Belle Haven Country Club is. I traded them some land after my
parents died. We had two cottages we used to rent out. We traded them.

MRS. ARNOLD: In the middle of the golf course! We
traded them cash for the land next to the store.

MR. ARNOLD: So, that's how I got some of the land
there. A lot of this land here was picked up on back taxes, because they
didn't have a record of anybody owning it, and people would come along
that knew something about it. They would check the records of Fairfax
County and just pay the back taxes for ten or fifteen years, which wasn't
much then. Maybe six dollars a year.

That belonged to the Belle Haven Country Club where the Towne Houses
are. And in my opinion, I'd say that's how the country club got it
because I got a couple lots of it even as late as I came along.

They made a trade with us so they could complete the golf course and
have it all on one side.

The golfers used to come in and get beer. They made the rounds, came
through to those last two holes, and the caddies would come in, one of
the older caddies, and buy beer. The guys would sit out under these two
huge Pin Oak trees and drink the beer, and then make those two holes.
Pretty soon there'd be some more come by.